Away from the North

Chapter 3

I pick up one of the trays and hand it to Jul before picking the other one up. I walk back over to my back pack and sit down on the floor. I eat my food, deciding that jail food isn't as bad as people say it is. It's only crackers, prices of meat and cheese, fruit, and some kind of soup.
I finish my food and pour my water down into the hole. I take my spoon and dig in the hole, filling up my water cup. I dump it out the window as it gets full and then I walk back over to the hole, digging more dirt out of it.
Jul joins me a few minutes after I start and we work for what seems like hours. I finally see the outside and I point at it. Jul nods and we work faster than ever, digging and dumping the dirt. We finally get a sizeable hole in the ground and we test to see if our backpacks can get through.
I kick the empty bucket over to the other side of the room. I hand Jul my backpack and it slips through with ease and so does his. He goes through the hole first and gets through relatively easily. I take one last look around the cell and move towards the hole.
I push my way through and as I'm halfway in I hear the cell door opening. I push at the ground frantically, trying to get through faster. Jul grabs my hands and starts to pull me through but then I feel a hand in my ankle. I gasp and tell Jul to pull harder.
I kick at the person holding my foot and they finally release it, allowing me to get through the hole. I stand up and Jul hands me my backpack. I put it on and we run off, away from the prison. We don't stop running for a long time and when we do we are both extremely out of breath.
I take my water bottle off of my backpack and take a sip before offering it to Jul who gratefully takes it, chugging some of it down. When we catch our breath we walk through the alleyways, occasionally stopping to look through a trash can to see if there's anything that we can use in it.
We get out of the main part of the town and walk through a neighborhood. One of the houses looks really nice so we walk over to it and look through their trash can.
Their lights turn on and we freeze by the trash can. We slowly move closer to the ground and hide in one of the bushes. A man in a robe walks out of the front door with a broom in his hand. He looks around while his wife stands at the front door, holding a small child in her arms.
He beats at the trash cans with the broom and shakes his head. I sit completely still as he walks over to the bushes and examines them. I hold my breath and wait for utter demise. He walks away after a minute, having not seen me or Jul hiding in the bushes.
I let out my breath as he walks around the house a couple of times before walking back to the trash cans and closing the lids again. He walks up to the front door looking defeated.
"Stupid raccoons," he says to his wife who pats his back as they walk back inside. He slams the door and we wait for the lights inside the house to turn off. We watch the silhouettes of the man and his wife walk around the house.
The man peeks out the window a couple of times and we stay completely still, not wanting him to see the bushes moving and think that we're raccoons only to find out that we're people who are digging in his trash can. Finally they turn off the light inside the house.
We wait for about half an hour before going to move, wanting to make sure that the man wasn't waiting for is to come back. We get out of the bushes and walk past the neighborhood. I show Jul a jacket made of leather that I found in their trash can.
He games in awe and trails his fingers over the leather. It's really rare to own pieces of leather, let alone a jacket made of it. I hand it to him and he stuffs it in his backpack.
We walk through the town in silence, looking around to make sure that no guards are going to pop up our of nowhere. Occasionally we see people moving around in their houses and duck down behind trash cans and into bushes.
We make it to the edge of the town and stop for a minute to rest. I sit down on a curb and look around for any guards. I don't see any around I I relax and enjoy the breeze washing over me.
"We really need to wash up," Jul says while holding his nose. I sniff my clothes and nod , grimacing at my smell. I stand up and grab my backpack off of the dirt beside me.
It's been about a week since we left and we are both desperately in need of washing up. We walk out of the town and to a lake that is near it. We walk all the way around it and to the other side where we won't be spotted.
We wash our dirty clothes as the sun comes up, deciding to camp here for the night. We hang the clean clothes on the repressed I grab a bar of soap from my bag. I wash up quickly and then grab my last pair of dry clothes from my bag.
I change into them as Jul comes back from washing up, his hair dripping wet. He's like an older brother to be honest, a little crazy and way too overprotective but he's my unrelated brother all the same. I walk over to him and give him a hug.
"Thanks for saving us back there," I tell him. He chuckles and ruffles my hair slightly. I playfully glare at him and run my comb through it again. I manage to fix it and then I grab the clothes I was wearing earlier.
I walk back to the lake and clean the clothes before deciding that I'm going to sleep. I take out my blanket and lay it over me. I snuggle into it and let the warm sunlight wash over me.